LonePortal - Your One Gateway to the Old Web!

[Melooon]

That's how everything use to be. Nothing was made for everyone and the modern world wants it to be all inclusive for everyone and that's why the modern web is awful now imo. Everything is so cookie cutter because it's the way you appease everyone. Same with games, everything feels the same and is towards milking everyone as much as possible and it just doesn't sit right with me.

It sounds like you are really angry at the modern world, and you’re focusing that anger on the idea of inclusion, and you think you are here to save people from the evils of inclusivity.

I hope someday you can let that anger go, because the world’s not that bad, and making room for people, making them happy and making them welcome and connected, is not a trick or a scam. Your portal does not have to be alone

[Xyphien]

It sounds like you are really angry at the modern world, and you’re focusing that anger on the idea of inclusion, and you think you are here to save people from the evils of inclusivity.

I hope someday you can let that anger go, because the world’s not that bad, and making room for people, making them happy and making them welcome and connected, is not a trick or a scam. Your portal does not have to be alone

I'm just a dude building a website I want to see lol. It's not that deep XD

[Melooon]

building a website I want to see lol. It's not that deep XD

I do tend to jump to overanalyzing messages, and I'm not very good at it For me it really is deep, and this forum exists to discuss that depth. Which is why I keep trying to engage you in it, and why I'm a bit pushy

[stephan_e_perez]

Yeah, I didn't think it was performative but I honestly do not care one way or another. I'm building what I want the internet to be, and it's why I'm calling it an Intraweb and making it all built around itself. How I see it is if you don't like it, don't use it :D That's how everything use to be. Nothing was made for everyone and the modern world wants it to be all inclusive for everyone and that's why the modern web is awful now imo. Everything is so cookie cutter because it's the way you appease everyone. Same with games, everything feels the same and is towards milking everyone as much as possible and it just doesn't sit right with me.

How would you define "the modern web"?

If we define it as 'what websites most people actually use', I would say it is indeed awful because it's dominated by a handful of a big corporations. Rather than "all inclusive", the result of this is more characterizable as "sterilized" and "commercialized". I don't think anyone here is in favor of that either.

If on the other hand, you define "the modern web" as the majority of actual websites, this is quite a vast and diverse field with many different focuses, so I'm not sure how you would assess it as "too inclusive" in this case either.

While there have been some other critiques here, I think the main one is the forbidding of external links and the desire to keep everyone on your page as the "lone portal". You shouldn't be surprised that this is being objected to on a forum whose dominant ethos aligns with the Web Revival, which highly values interconnectivity, with many users proudly displaying the buttons of their net neighbors.

But hey! "Leben bedeutet, eine Form verteidigen". If this project is important to you, and if the things being criticized about it are uncompromisable, keep at it.

[Kallistero]

It sounds like it could be a cool experiment. I've been in & out of walled-garden intranets before, a lot of government & financial institutions have them. I haven't seen one transparently viewable from the outside, though. It's like a glass box made of one-way mirrors!    People have an interest in staying inside those other intranets for infosec reasons, but I guess people would keep things internal to LonePortal just to see the project play out. Have you thought about what it might look like for it to have a lot of users? How about the kinds of people who would use it, wouldn't a lot of people know of other places to go for everything offered on LonePortal, making the rule against external links functionally just a really soft rule, like etiquette?

For instance, if someone wants to read about ferns, they can go to Wikipedia, and if they want to write their own free web pages, they can go to NekoWeb. The medium itself may be fighting you on the concept. You have games on there that run in Ruffle, and those games link to other sites when you click their intros. Super Mario 63 links to Runouw, Bloons TD goes to Ninja Kiwi, Drag Racer v3 has an actual clickable ad embedded into the swf. The no-hyperlinks gimmick sort of comes with holes in it that keep it from being a hard & fast rule when your userbase knows how to surf the Web, though just aspiring to have a site that has a little bit of a lot on it can be worthwhile on its own 

I'm still not so sure about the branding, though. Your message is sort of being eaten by sites like The Old Net and YToo. The tagline "Your One Gateway to the Old Web" primes it to sound off-color & not quite in touch with people who are knowledgeable about actually finding the old Web in the present day.

I also see where the AI-looking default theme can come in, too, and since it's textual, you can even look it up. For instance, the header bar's default theme uses a gradient from #1084d0 to #000080, the colors are the same as those from Windows 98 ("RGB(16, 132, 208)" = #1084d0), and you can find the full set of colors in .md files meant to be used by AI. It even manifests as that exact same title bar in Web pages. Maybe you lifted it from somewhere; lots of classic-Web enthusiasts template off of existing pages. It's just, people who see lots of websites are gonna see patterns that may not be easy to communicate but can be easily felt. You're playing lots of different types of music by ear, and the musicians can hear the all-over-the-place-ness in each song 

By the way, you might've noticed that I've put a lot of links here, and they're all enriching to the statements being made, coming from many different perspectives & many different goals. I want to give you a recent quote from someone you're very close to:

Nothing was made for everyone and the modern world wants it to be all inclusive for everyone and that's why the modern web is awful now imo. Everything is so cookie cutter because it's the way you appease everyone.

You may interpret this in a way that references the "everything"ness that LonePortal seems to aspire to, which is something to think about, but I want to emphasize what you actually mean with the "everything" here. I imagine that your statement comes from a place of "everything" being the collection of major platforms that we're all familiar with. Well, my gratuitous linking may communicate that our ideas & your ideas of "everything" might not quite align.

The rule about no outbound links probably comes from your idea of "everything" here; links lead to the Internet out there, and the Internet out there is hostile!    You want to have these corners of the Web untouched by the mainstream Internet commercial meta-culture, and that's fantastic. If a general audience is posting links, you might worry that a general person's idea of a link would lead to a social media post or self-promotion or even an ad farm. However, the wild Web is still out there, and I dare guess that LonePortal comes from a place of wondering where it all went. Well, it's still out there, and you've come to the right place to find the people who know where to find it, or even how to build it ourselves.

The Web you've longed for is still out there. And you are always invited to the parts of the Internet that you've missed 

[Xyphien]

Before replying to the latest replies, to those who pointed out how bad the emojis looked. I've finally had some time to sit down and work on them!

I'm honestly very proud of how the Camera turned out! I'm starting to think I maybe decent at pixel art and my wife (Who's an actual artist) says so too <3

Also, for those who were complaining about the rules, lack of terms of service, etc. I've finally got that fully made. It took a long time, and I will admit I had Ai look through MyBB to ensure I got everything. (I do not know the full ins & outs of MyBB which is why I needed help with it). So it should be fully set up now and legally compliant for the big nit picky places (UK & Cali)

I do tend to jump to overanalyzing messages, and I'm not very good at it For me it really is deep, and this forum exists to discuss that depth. Which is why I keep trying to engage you in it, and why I'm a bit pushy

I'm ngl, I thought you just hated me because of the concept I'm running with 

How would you define "the modern web"?

If we define it as 'what websites most people actually use', I would say it is indeed awful because it's dominated by a handful of a big corporations. Rather than "all inclusive", the result of this is more characterizable as "sterilized" and "commercialized". I don't think anyone here is in favor of that either.

If on the other hand, you define "the modern web" as the majority of actual websites, this is quite a vast and diverse field with many different focuses, so I'm not sure how you would assess it as "too inclusive" in this case either.


But hey! "Leben bedeutet, eine Form verteidigen". If this project is important to you, and if the things being criticized about it are uncompromisable, keep at it.

While there have been some other critiques here, I think the main one is the forbidding of external links and the desire to keep everyone on your page as the "lone portal". You shouldn't be surprised that this is being objected to on a forum whose dominant ethos aligns with the Web Revival, which highly values interconnectivity, with many users proudly displaying the buttons of their net neighbors.
Yeah, to me the modern web is what the masses use exclusively. Back in the day the masses had MySpace, AoL, AIM but everyone viewed everything else based off of word of mouth. Now it seems like the only places anyone visits (Once again by anyone I mean the masses) are Facebook, Twitt... I mean X, Youtube, etc. Which are all algorithmic slop (I absolutely hate the word slop but I genuinely think it applies here) that's now just overran by Ai bots, Images, and posts. Overly commercialized and sterilized content as you mentioned perfectly. The actual "modern web" outside of the masses I LOVE seeing and have different opinions on completely <3 As for the critiques of 'forbidding of external links' I completely understand the push back on it. It's not completely forbidden though, there's a forum section specifically for showcasing outside links, and you're allowed to have outside links posted on user sites as long as it's not the entire premise of the site. As for the rest there's not really too much need to discuss it seeing as my views will not change as this is the project I set out to make and I'm going to keep up as it's my personal passion project of some hermit medically retired person who hardly touches grass XD (I'm referring to myself just to ensure no one thinks I'm being hateful rofl)but I also understand once again why it keeps getting brought up regardless :) I just want everyone to know I won't change my mind, and I enjoy how it's set up. But people are more than happy to have links, interconnected content, etc. on their user sites, it's just that links on the signature, posted in outside areas, etc. should all be LP related to keep the 'intraweb' feel to it which is one of the main core concepts for the site.

Also, if that spacing on the quote is weird it's because I just typed the above message half way through the quoted message like an idiot rofl!

It sounds like it could be a cool experiment. I've been in & out of walled-garden intranets before, a lot of government & financial institutions have them. I haven't seen one transparently viewable from the outside, though. It's like a glass box made of one-way mirrors!    People have an interest in staying inside those other intranets for infosec reasons, but I guess people would keep things internal to LonePortal just to see the project play out. Have you thought about what it might look like for it to have a lot of users? How about the kinds of people who would use it, wouldn't a lot of people know of other places to go for everything offered on LonePortal, making the rule against external links functionally just a really soft rule, like etiquette?

For instance, if someone wants to read about ferns, they can go to Wikipedia, and if they want to write their own free web pages, they can go to NekoWeb. The medium itself may be fighting you on the concept. You have games on there that run in Ruffle, and those games link to other sites when you click their intros. Super Mario 63 links to Runouw, Bloons TD goes to Ninja Kiwi, Drag Racer v3 has an actual clickable ad embedded into the swf. The no-hyperlinks gimmick sort of comes with holes in it that keep it from being a hard & fast rule when your userbase knows how to surf the Web, though just aspiring to have a site that has a little bit of a lot on it can be worthwhile on its own 

I'm still not so sure about the branding, though. Your message is sort of being eaten by sites like The Old Net and YToo. The tagline "Your One Gateway to the Old Web" primes it to sound off-color & not quite in touch with people who are knowledgeable about actually finding the old Web in the present day.

I also see where the AI-looking default theme can come in, too, and since it's textual, you can even look it up. For instance, the header bar's default theme uses a gradient from #1084d0 to #000080, the colors are the same as those from Windows 98 ("RGB(16, 132, 208)" = #1084d0), and you can find the full set of colors in .md files meant to be used by AI. It even manifests as that exact same title bar in Web pages. Maybe you lifted it from somewhere; lots of classic-Web enthusiasts template off of existing pages. It's just, people who see lots of websites are gonna see patterns that may not be easy to communicate but can be easily felt. You're playing lots of different types of music by ear, and the musicians can hear the all-over-the-place-ness in each song 

By the way, you might've noticed that I've put a lot of links here, and they're all enriching to the statements being made, coming from many different perspectives & many different goals. I want to give you a recent quote from someone you're very close to:

You may interpret this in a way that references the "everything"ness that LonePortal seems to aspire to, which is something to think about, but I want to emphasize what you actually mean with the "everything" here. I imagine that your statement comes from a place of "everything" being the collection of major platforms that we're all familiar with. Well, my gratuitous linking may communicate that our ideas & your ideas of "everything" might not quite align.

The rule about no outbound links probably comes from your idea of "everything" here; links lead to the Internet out there, and the Internet out there is hostile!    You want to have these corners of the Web untouched by the mainstream Internet commercial meta-culture, and that's fantastic. If a general audience is posting links, you might worry that a general person's idea of a link would lead to a social media post or self-promotion or even an ad farm. However, the wild Web is still out there, and I dare guess that LonePortal comes from a place of wondering where it all went. Well, it's still out there, and you've come to the right place to find the people who know where to find it, or even how to build it ourselves.

The Web you've longed for is still out there. And you are always invited to the parts of the Internet that you've missed 

There's places to post external links. It's not hard locked to the site. I mentioned it above but it is TL;DR so I'll restate it :) There's a forum section specifically to post other retro inspired outside links. As well as you can post links on your user sites that goes outside of LP as long as it's not the main focal point. I'd also like to have sites for retro inspired games, and technically those will be to point to steam, gog (Would be really cool to have gog as the main since they're pay to own unlike the rest), itch, etc. but the gray area with that is the core concept is to showcase the game, not necessarily the link. I can see a lot of issues coming from that but that's a later me issue  So yeah, it's a hard rule outside of those areas but those areas are made to be exceptions and to give people some extra freedom outside of the normal rules :)

As for the colors, once again I was going for a Windows look for the main theme. I wanted it to hit you with nostalgia the first time you go to it. Just keep in mind that there's themes each user can buy (With LP$ a non paid currency) that allow you to change the look of the site. So the default Windows looking theme isn't the site forever if you do not wish for it to be. Right now there's a Halloween theme out which is also purchasable. It's limited time, but there's other themes. One of which I may have to remove eventually buuuuut until then I love it and will be keeping it (It's a theme based off of a game)

As for the last statement, yes, when making LonePortal I did not know there were so many sites similar to it out there doing it in their own unique way. I've been going through and checking them out. I get why people dislike the concept of the intraweb, but it also makes it unique compared to others as well and once again, it's a personal project. I am a hard supporter of the "If you do not like it, do not use it. But do not force your opinions on others" mindset. I'm making LP because I feel there's things missing, same with everyone else and if nothing else y'all can watch it not gain any popularity whilst I continue to work on it for years to come lol. It's my baby, and a nice little experiment as well.








Also, I want you all to know that I maybe writing walls of text but I am in no way shape or form upset at all :) I'm actually quite happy you all are having discussions with me about it and voicing your opinions, concerns, likes, dislikes, etc. The best way to improve is with constructive criticism (Even if it isn't added the notes can still help shape the future). With that being said, thank you all for the comments and taking time out of your potentially busy day to give me your opinions on my site <3

[Melooon]

I thought you just hated me because of the concept I'm running with

I don’t hate you I can be blunt, and I’m not a fan of your intranet idea; however I’m am curious about you, and I want your ideas to be explored. My thoughts are: You have joined a forum whose central point is discussing ideas for a fun vision of a future web, yet you describe a project that on many levels goes directly against the ideas that people here have built in order to accomplish that goal (the value of links being a prime example).

Whenever people in this thread try to engage you in debating that conflict, you essentially respond with “I’m not going to debate that, but here is a list of features that I think are related” - features are great, but they are not a substitute for philosophy (and I’d argue the lack of philosophy is a big part of what makes the mainstream web so grim). My reaction is to ask, why won’t you have that discussion? Is it just about not wanting conflict?

You have repeatedly said that you value web spaces that have their own unique ideals and modes of existing; and that if people don’t like your ideals, they don’t need to use your site. You seem to understand that you are in a certain amount of opposition to what people are saying here, but you still seem to want to be here. That’s good, but exploring the philosophy of websites is the ideal of this space, so people here want to have that philosophical discussion with you.

When you say you wont change your mind, it shuts down the possibility of exploring the idea - this forum is about exploring ideas; it prob comes across like I’m trying to change your mind (and I am), but I don’t necessarily expect you to change, or even want you to; you have arrived with a new idea, and I want that idea to be explored; exploration starts with deconstruction, and then it builds up again

I’m not trying to push you away, or suggest you should not be here, I want you to be here, you are very welcome. I also want to clarify; you have the right to work away on whatever you like, and I don’t think popularity is a good measure of a projects worth. I might not like the site concept you’ve described, however even if I disagree with you, I still want you to find purpose and meaning in what you make; I don’t want you to sit on your own coding a site for no one, I want your site to get used, and be enjoyed, and in the process bring you enjoyment and meaning as its maintainer - the goal for me, even if I’m not always great at it, is to challenge you, so that you are pushed to make something more than you’d make if everyone was giving compliments. That is the art school process that this forum aims to mirror.

[boreal cryptid]

while this concept does not resonate with me, and i'm more into open web, i still think the idea of making some kind of "small internet within the internet" is interesting (and complex!). wish you luck in dev and exploring this idea. reminds me of a small town a little.
i hope you enjoy building it!!

(cool new icons btw)